We hadden het genoegen om een liefdadigheidsconcert te organiseren in de kerk van Mar Addai en Mar Mari, waarbij zes koren uit verschillende christelijke tradities samenkomen in een moment van deling, broederschap en hoop.

We danken van harte alle deelnemende koren voor hun toewijding en hun mooie bijdrage aan deze gebeurtenis:

• Chorale des Petits Anges
• Chorale Room orthodoxe Saint-Ignace d’Antioche
• Chorale Arménienne – Église apostolique arménienne
• Chorale chaldéenne – Mar Addai en Mar Mari
• Chorale des enfants maronites – Église Saint-Maroun
• Chorale syriak – Saint-Jean-Baptiste

Deze bijeenkomst vierde de rijkdom van onze christelijke tradities, versterkte de banden tussen onze gemeenschappen en benadrukte een cultureel en spiritueel erfgoed dat we toegewijd zijn aan toekomstige generaties.

Bekijk de video op Facebook hier

De voorzitter van Stichting Schlomo had de eer een toespraak te houden tijdens deze bijeenkomst:

The Voice of Beth Nahrain

Distinguished guests, beloved visitors,
Look around you. Listen to the silence just before the music begins. The choirs standing before you here tonight, the languages you will hear, the traditions being brought to life—they are not a randomly assembled mosaic. They are the living voice of a land that breathes through the centuries. They are the voice of Beth Nahrain. The Land Between the Rivers, Mesopotamia.

When we in the West speak of Christians in the Middle East, we unfortunately too often fall back on the language of the margins. We hear terms like “minority,” “vulnerable group,” or “a historical curiosity.” These are noncommittal words that fall short of reality.
Let one thing be absolutely clear tonight, once and for all: the Christians of Beth Nahrain are not guests in the Middle East. They are not passersby, not an imported minority, and not exotic outsiders who need protection like an endangered species. They are the indigenous rightful owners of this land. They are the original inhabitants of the territory that today spans Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraq.
Their presence is not a footnote in history; they are history itself. The land there is not merely a backdrop; it is steeped in their DNA. The soil has been nourished by the blood of their martyrs, generation after generation. The stones of the ancient monasteries in Tur Abdin, the plains of Nineveh, the memories of Babylon—they bear the fingerprints of their ancestors. They do not demand privileges; they demand their inalienable right to be treated as equal citizens. Citizens who belong where they were born and where their language, Aramaic, is still spoken.

In the coming hours, you will hear that deep, unshakable history. You will hear what diversity sounds like: a wealth of choirs, a variety of languages and liturgical traditions, yet all sharing the same, unshakable root. The singers performing for you here tonight carry that history not only in their voices, but in their very being. They are the living bridge to that distant past.

But with this concert, we do not merely want to take you back to yesterday. We want to let you look straight into the eyes of tomorrow. For a history is truly alive only if it has a future. And that future? It has color and meaning only if Christians can remain in their cradle.
A Middle East without Christians is an unthinkable void—a landscape without a soul. The walls may remain standing, the monuments may be restored, but we must realize one piercing truth: monuments do not pray. Stones do not sing. 
A homeland without its people is no longer a homeland—it is a graveyard of memories.

That is what we at Syriac Cross Belgium, Schlomo Netherlands, and Syriac Cross Germany, together with our partners on the ground, are unconditionally committed to, day in and day out. Our partners who have their feet in the mud and who know better than anyone where the need is greatest. 

You just saw the striking images from Syria. You saw the resilience. What has been destroyed by barbaric hands is being rebuilt, stone by stone, by its rightful inhabitants. Not merely to survive, but to thrive, to flourish, to hold fast to that traditional right to exist granted to them by God and by law. We are fighting for a situation in which fleeing is no longer a bitter necessity, but in which staying becomes a safe and dignified promise.

Tonight we celebrate that resilience. Let yourself be carried away by the sounds of music through the centuries. But do not let the melodies merely caress your ears; let them awaken your consciousness. With every note, with every breath of these choirs, realize that this culture must continue to resound where it belongs: in the sacred soil of Beth Nahrain.

I wish you an uplifting and inspiring evening.